Press Releases

WASHINGTON, DC— Representatives Danny K. Davis (D-IL), Judy Chu (D-CA), Gwen Moore (D-WI), Dwight Evans (D-PA), Jimmy Gomez (D-CA), and Bennie Thompson (D-MS) introduced H.R. 2108, the TANF State Expenditure Integrity Act, which would give the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) the statutory authority it needs to prevent, monitor, and penalize the intentional misuse of federal funds by contractors and other subrecipient grantees of the $16.5 billion TANF block grant. HHS is prohibited by law from issuing regulations to monitor TANF contractors and subgrant recipients and ensure that they are penalized, even for egregious misuse like what occurred recently in Mississippi. The TANF State Expenditure Integrity Act gives the HHS Secretary the ability to establish a formal system to closely monitor the use of TANF funds, ensures consistent data reporting to identify misuse, and creates a TANF Program Integrity Unit to carry out grantee monitoring. The bill would also impose a new penalty for intentional misuse of funds where the state must spend at least an equivalent amount of the misused funds in the form of cash assistance directly to families who are very low income.